Semiconductor devices, such as silicon chip integrated circuits (ICs), are subject to early failure during their life cycle. Thus, producers of these circuits have found it cost effective to rigorously stress them prior to their inclusion in electronic products. By conducting such stressing, and by the elimination of failed or weakly performing ICs in final test, the reliability of the product is greatly enhanced.
During such "burn-in", boards are used to support a number of ICs inside an oven. These boards electrically connect DC voltage with both timing and so-called "driver" circuitry via an electrical interface connector port. To achieve this, burn-in boards have circuitry printed thereon which extends to an edge of the board, so that the edge fingers of the board can be plugged into the electrical interface port. Racks are arranged to hold a number of burn-in boards in positions adjacent an equal number of interface ports, thus increasing the number of components which may be burned-in at a given time.
At first burn-in systems were custom made with many different profiles. That is, when a specific IC was to be burned-in, a timing and driver board would be designed, a burn-in board would be designed, and the appropriate interface port configuration would be developed. This, however, often resulted in the need to redesign and rebuild these components when new products were to be burned-in.
So as to minimize this problem, certain standard configurations for burn-in boards, timing and driver boards and the related interface ports began to emerge. Two specific configurations for the edge finger configuration of burn-in boards have become widely used in this industry. Therefore the configurations of the interface connector ports into which such boards may be inserted have also become standard. Unfortunately, these connector port configurations are not compatible in size or type of connection used. That is, a burn-in board having an edge finger configuration designed to mate with one type of connector will not mate with other types of connectors, and only the burn-in board designed for that system can be used in that system. Further, one of these configurations uses, in part, knife switch type contacts which have been found to be less desirable in some instances than the contact pin type.
Those who perform burn-in and burn-in services have acquired both types of these systems to ensure reliable service to their customers and the ability to obtain adequate parts and servicing of the equipment. When further burn-in capacity is required, it often becomes necessary to decide on more equipment conforming with one or the other of these systems. It would thus be preferable to acquire further capacity which would allow the use of burn-in boards of both types. This way, if either type of system breaks down or is unsatisfactory for a given application, burn-in boards from the other system could still be used in the new system.